Free November by David Mamet Page B

stuck in your ear.
    CHARLES: (
To self
) That’s right. (
Re speech
) “We must and can and shall move forward.” I’m supposed to say this about what?
    ARCHER: Whatever they ask you.
    CHARLES: How can Bernstein write this crap?
    ARCHER: She didn’t write it.
    CHARLES: Bernstein didn’t write it?
    ARCHER: No. She’s on vacation.
    CHARLES: Aha. (
Pause
) It
almost
: were I of a paranoid
bent
, would make me
opine
. That somebody was out to get me.
    ARCHER: I don’t follow.
    CHARLES: That, one, the committee has ceased spending money on me …
    ARCHER: Yeah …
    CHARLES: At the same time. As my
speechwriter
. Has chosen to take a vacation. Why?
    ARCHER: Your ten o’clock is in the anteroom, with fifty thou …
    ( ARCHER
hands him papers
.)
    CHARLES: Get Bernstein to rewrite this crap. Where is she?
    ARCHER: She’s technically still on vacation.
    CHARLES: Get her to write it on vacation.
    ARCHER: She’s already working on vacation.
    CHARLES: What’s she working on?
    ARCHER: She’s working on your concession speech.
    CHARLES: OH FUCK THIS FUCKEN LIFE AND EVERYTHING IT
STANDS
FOR. Fucken Bernstein. Sinking ship …
    ARCHER: Chuck.
    CHARLES: I don’t get a vacation …
    ARCHER: She hasn’t had a vacation in four years.
    CHARLES: Well, she lives for her work. She hasn’t got a family.
    ARCHER: She lives with that girl.
    CHARLES: Well, they haven’t got children.
    ARCHER: She went to China to pick up a kid.
    (
Pause
)
    CHARLES: She went to China to pick up a kid.
    ARCHER: She went to adopt a baby …
    (
Pause
)
    CHARLES: She
went
to
China
to
adopt
a baby.
    ARCHER: What’s so extraord …
    CHARLES: Aren’t we at war with China?
    ARCHER: Not yet …
    CHARLES: Well, it sounds like treason to
me
.
    ARCHER: How?
    CHARLES: She, after four years. Goes to China, to quote quote complete her
family
. To raise a child. Which she could not DO, if, if I were to serve another term. (
Pause
) Oh, I begin to see it, I begin to see it: Why does she go now. Yes. Bernstein. Why “now”?
    ARCHER: Why now what?
    CHARLES: For it is not her “quote” biological
“clock,”
as she is
buying
the child, so whence this sudden rush of wings?
    ARCHER: All right …
    CHARLES: She GOES TO CHINA,
NOW
, because, she raises the kid NOW, because I’m out of OFFICE. THAT is why it’s fucken
treason
.
    ARCHER:  … Chuck.
    CHARLES: To
China
.
    ARCHER: (
To phone
) Get Bernstein to come in.
    CHARLES:  … the only place you can get a meal on Christmas?
    ARCHER:  … Chuck.
    CHARLES:  … Chinese restaurant.
    ARCHER:  … Chuck.
    CHARLES: They’re always open. Fucken chinks. They got all the time in the world … and they don’t mind working themselves to death … Sell you the ground they walk on, sell the offspring of their wombs. Fucking Bernstein. Fly’n off to
China
, her vacation. What’d she get, a baby girl?
    ARCHER: That’s all they sell …
    CHARLES: (
Reads
) “To boldly address those problems which confront us … with hope …” Who writes this shit?
    (
The phone rings
.)
    ARCHER: Children from Yale. ( ARCHER
answers the phone
.) Yes?
    CHARLES: Get Bernstein in.
    ARCHER:  … she just got in last night. At three a.m.
    CHARLES: Get her in.
    ARCHER: She called to say she’s sick.
    CHARLES: What’s she got, “bird flu”?
    ARCHER: I think she’s just tired.
    CHARLES: She’s just tired. What is she, “nursing”? Oh. I forgot. She’s not “nursing,” ’cause she
bought
the baby.
    ARCHER: Your ten o’clock appointment.
    CHARLES: Get Bernstein in here. I want to
confront
her treasonous ass. One thing I’ve learned in this job, Arch?
    ARCHER: Yes.
    CHARLES: One
thing
… ?
    ARCHER: Yes.
    CHARLES: Is who can you trust?
    ARCHER: You can trust me, Chucky.
    CHARLES: Apart from you.
    ARCHER: Nobody.
    CHARLES:
This
broad: one, bails out, two, writes my
concession
speech, three, THREE? Where does she go to
write
it?
    ARCHER: China.
    CHARLES: Do the math. And pee fucken ess: What in the world, do you think,